


Copper Roses

by HomuraBakura



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-25 10:25:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6191395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HomuraBakura/pseuds/HomuraBakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of oneshots featuring the pairing Penny Polendina/Ruby Rose.  Will contain fluff, angst, etc.  Sporadic updates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Black Roses

Ironwood kept Penny. Ruby didn't know why it hadn't occurred to her that he would, but it was still a terrible, world-swaying moment when she stepped into the hallway, glanced into the glass, and saw the severed torso of Penny Polendina lying on a table.

“Miss Rose? Are you all right?”

Ironwood's hand automatically came out to steady her back, but Ruby couldn't take her eyes off of Penny. Off of that sweet, precious girl with the bow in her hair that laid in pieces on a table, a trio of women in lab coats with hair pulled back in buns surrounding her as tiny sparks flew off of their power tools. They were welding Penny back together.

After a beat, Ironwood seemed to notice what she was looking at.

“Oh...my apologies, I didn't know they were...working on her today...”

He hesitated, and Ruby could only hear the sound of her heart pulsing in her ears. Could only feel the tremble in her fingers as her eyes marked every rip of metal, every jagged edge, every sparking circuit that seemed to flicker desperately for life before going out again.

She opened her mouth, but words didn't, couldn't get out of her throat. She swallowed. Tried again.

“Are you going to fix her?”

Her voice was so quiet that she could barely hear herself. Even she is shocked at how trembling and thick it feels. Ironwood didn't respond for a moment.

“We...” he started. He stopped, tried to start again. “We're trying. But Penny was...one of a kind. We're not sure how to...not sure how to repeat what happened with her.”

Ruby's hands were shaking so badly now that she had to grab the hem of her skirt to still them. She pressed her lips together as though that would stop the sob from crawling out of her throat. Ironwood's hand touched her back against, lighter this time, a tentative attempt at comfort.

“Do you...want to go see her?”

Ruby didn't remember nodding, but Ironwood opened the door and let Ruby inside, his hand still on her back as though she might fall over again. The room was tiny and too bright, with all the artificial lights pouring down on Penny's tiny form. The three mechanics looked up from their work.

“Would you give us a moment?” Ironwood said. “I'm sorry to interrupt you.”

The woman currently welding Penny's arm back onto her shoulder looked down, a stray black curl bouncing against her dark forehead. Her amber eyes softened as she caught Ruby's face, noted her shaking hands. Then she nodded. She put her tool down and unplugged it, waving to the other two. She inclined her head softly as she passed Ruby, and Ruby wondered at the back of her head if the woman knew that Ruby had known Penny somehow.

The door closed softly shut behind them. For a moment, there was only silence, the pulsing of the artificial lights that seemed to burn Ruby's face. Ruby continued to cling to her skirt. She tried to keep her eyes on Penny's face, not the jagged edge of her ripped torso with the sparking wires inside. That wasn't much of a comfort either, though...Penny's face was blank and solid, her pupils expanded a little too wide. None of the excitement and wonder that had been so integral to Penny remained. She was only a shell. A robot with Penny's face, but without Penny's soul.

“She talked about you a few times,” Ironwood said, his voice soft but echoing in the room. “Not much...I suspect she was worried I would tell her to keep her distance from you.”

He rubbed a hand over his mouth. A soft, hoarse laugh huffed from his throat.

“I probably would have, come to think of it...”

He squeezed Ruby's shoulder lightly.

“But she cared for you a lot. I know that much.”

Ruby did not answer. She couldn't. Her stomach was twisting inside her and she thought if she opened her mouth she might throw up. Her head was only a buzz of static. Was that what Penny had felt when everything had shut down? Just static, as her systems had short-circuited and stopped? Was that what dying felt like?

Ironwood's hand slipped from her shoulder.

“I'll give you some time.”

She did not turn around as she heard his boots click against the floor, as she heard them squeak when he hesitated at the door. Finally, the door opened, and swung shut.

Ruby was alone.

Alone with Penny.

Ruby counted the seconds at the back of her head. Thirty. Thirty seconds before her legs found the strength to step forward. Twenty more before she was able to drag herself to the table, to stand inches from Penny's ruined body and look down at her. Her hair was...mussed up. And her bow was askew.

Robotically, Ruby reached up and smoothed Penny's bangs, tried to straighten her bob as best she could, resettle the bow. She wasn't sure exactly when her vision blurred out and was replaced with tears but suddenly she couldn't see Penny's face anymore and she had to rub furiously at her eyes to clear them.

She felt like she should say something. Anything. 'I'm sorry'? 'I miss you'? 'Please come back'? She...she didn't know.

She couldn't do this.

Ruby stepped back, her hands still over her eyes. She had to get out, but she had to be able to see first—oh.

Her backside bumped into the control panel behind her and she felt herself mash into a button. Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Panic swelled in her chest and her throat went dry as she whipped around, trying to blink her eyes clear. What had she pushed? Please be nothing bad, oh please, please, please—

The computer screen had flickered on. Memory Bank Access. Log Date 7-26.

Ruby blinked once, rubbing at the corner her eye with the heel of her hand. What? What had she turned on?

The screen turned on, and Ruby sucked in a breath. Penny.

She was looked at herself in a mirror. That was the only reason Ruby could see her at all; she was looking through Penny's eyes like a video camera. The girl had her brow furrowed and her tongue sticking half out as she squinted closely at a book a few inches from her face. Ruby tried to read the title, but her eyes were still too blurry with tears to really make out the mirrored words and figure out what they said. Penny nodded a few times, and then she looked up at herself in the mirror.

She cleared her throat into her fist.

“Ah...okay. So...no, no, not like that. Hm. Hello, friend! Ahh, no, that doesn't sound natural at all. What does the book say?”

She pulled the pages to her eyes again, and Ruby could see the tiny printed words for just a beat before Penny let the book drop again. She cleared her throat once more, smiled brightly, and faced herself in the mirror.

“Hi, Ruby! Can I talk to you?”

Ruby felt like she had just been punched in the gut. Her hands clapped over her mouth and she took a stumbling step back. Penny. Oh, Penny, Penny, Penny. That was her own name tumbling out of Penny's lips, in Penny's bright, cheerful voice, and—she couldn't do this.

She took another step back but hit the table that Penny was laid out on. Her knees gave out and she slid down against the table. Her eyes couldn't move away from the screen.

“Oh, no, that doesn't sound nice at all,” Penny said, moaning. “How do I sound natural about this...?”

She made a move to lift the book up again, but then shook her head.

“No, no, I'm not going to sound right by reading it out of a book. How does a normal girl say things like this...?”

She hummed for a moment, rubbing her chin.

“Perhaps a direct approach?” she said. “Hm.”

She hesitated a moment longer, her eyes going out of focus and blurring the screen. Then she seemed to snap out of it and looked back at her own reflection. She chewed her lip for a moment. Then she took a deep breath, lifting her shoulders up, and then clasped her hands in front of her, still clutching the book between them.

“Ruby,” she said again, and Ruby's whole body just shuddered at the sound of her own name, like Penny was talking straight to her. “I...I wanted to tell you...something.”

She looked down and the view turned to the carpet for a moment, and Penny's feet, shifting against the floor. She looked up again at her reflection.

“I was really, really glad to meet you,” she said. Her voice picked up, now, and it seemed as though the words were stumbling over themselves, in a rush to get out first. “And I feel like, hanging out with you is the best thing that has every happened to me. I was really lucky to have you for my first friend. And maybe—I don't know, maybe I'm just thinking this because you're the first person I've met, but—Ruby Rose, I...”

She hesitated, the words died for a moment. She was actually getting something of a flush in her cheeks. When she next spoke, the words were quiet. Almost too quiet to hear.

“I like you...very much. I like you a lot, Ruby. Perhaps as something...different than friendship. And I...I just wanted you to know that. That I want to continue being with you as long as possible, and I'm going to ask Ironwood if I can transfer to Beacon. So that we can really hang out together, like I had hoped we could. And maybe...perhaps...do you think one day we could...?”

And then her eyes dropped to the carpet and the world shook back and forth as she shook her head, her hands pressing up against her cheeks.

“Oh, no, no, no, that's too much, too much, I'm really going to have to practice that some more...I have until the end of the tournament, no rush, Penny, no rush...”

Ruby was sobbing. She couldn't remember when she had started but she couldn't see anymore, couldn't hear anymore. She pressed her face into her knees and dragged her legs up in a tight embrace and just sobbed and shook and cried, the tears washing down her face like raindrops pouring over her.

“Penny,” she sobbed. “Penny, Penny, Penny, Penny—”

Somewhere in her tears, someone shut off the memory bank. Somewhere in her sobbing, she felt a hand grasp her shoulder, try to steady her, words whispered at a low, soothing level that she couldn't comprehend the words of.

It didn't matter. None of it did. Penny was gone.

Ruby would never get to tell Penny her answer.


	2. Yellow Roses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby really wants Penny to have a nail-painting party with her, but Penny isn't sure how well that will work when she doesn't have any nails.

“I...I don't know, Ruby...”

“But you said! You said you wanted to! Come on, it'll be fun!”

Penny chewed on her lip. She twisted her fingers around and around each other, twining and untwining them over and over until the fabric of her gloves got twisted.

Ruby waited patiently. The younger girl sat on her knees in front of the bed, still showing off the little bottles of bright red nail polish that she had produced from under her mattress.

“Please, Penny? Pleaseeeee?” she said, putting on her best puppy dog eyes. “Weiss wouldn't do it with me; she said red nail polish wasn't...posh enough or something like that. Yang straight up refuses to wear it and Blake looked uncomfortable when I asked so I just said it was fine.”

She pouted her lip and did her best to make her silver eyes look as shiny and hopeful as possible. Penny wasn't sure how to blush, but she thought if she had the blood vessels necessary for it, she might be doing it now. Ruby was...very cute, she found herself thinking for perhaps the hundredth time since they had first met. Penny had read stories about people finding other people cute, but had never really before understood it herself. She hadn't spent enough time around other real humans to understand. But she did now; it was something about the sweep of Ruby's dark hair as it flipped down and around the side of her face and the way that light caught glimmers of red in the black, making it look like her hair was alight with dying embers. Something in the way that her silver eyes sparkled in a fair face whenever she was excited. Something in her voice when she spoke, a thrum that was incredibly pleasant to Penny's audio registers.

“O...okay,” Penny said, melting under Ruby's gaze. “I just...I don't really have any nails to polish...”

Ruby squealed with delight, hopping up from her seat to throw her arms around Penny's shoulders.

“Don't worry! Leave it to me! Oh, this is going to be so much fun! I've wanted to have a makeover party for ages!”

Ruby immediately zipped up and away, leaving a chaos of flower petals in her wake as she zoomed around the room to grab some things. In the bare blink of an eye, she had set up with several shades of nail polish, newspaper to cover the floor, and the various apparatus that accompanied a make over party.

Penny balanced awkwardly on the edge of one of the beds—she wasn't sure who's it was to be honest, it might be Blake's or Weiss'. Ruby patted the ground beside her excitedly, already brandishing a brush.

“Come on, come on!”

“Don't you want to go first...?” Penny said, sliding slowly to the floor and tucking her legs beneath her.

“No, it's fine! You can go first!”

Penny bit her tongue lightly, hesitating. Ruby might know what Penny was, but that didn't mean she felt entirely comfortable making it ever more visible. She stared at her gloves for a moment. Then, after a beat, she slowly started to tug at the the fingers of one glove, carefully easing it off of her fingers. One metallic hand came into view, and she tried not to look at Ruby for fear of seeing the girl's face turn to disappointment. She tugged the other one off, and now her jointed, metal hands were poking free of her sleeves. She turned them over, and the ends of her fingers were smooth, nail-less. They hadn't given her artificial skin grafts for her limbs, assuming that she would always be in full uniform. She felt somehow vulnerable without her gloves, showing off exactly what she was in front of the whole world—even if the whole world right now was just Ruby's room.

She licked her lips once. Finally, she managed to lift her eyes towards Ruby.

“Sorry, I mean...I did say I don't really...have nails to polish...”

But Ruby didn't look in the slightest disappointed. In fact, her eyes were sparkling with that excitement that bloomed over her face when she had an idea.

“And I said that you could leave it to me! Watch this, it's gonna be magical!”

She popped the brush back into the bottle and grabbed a little box instead.

“Ta-da!!” she said triumphantly, waving it back and forth. “Fake nails!!”

Penny blinked with some surprise. She hesitated while Ruby presented the box in front of, tilted her head at the pink, stylized box covered in flowers and butterflies around the clear plastic that showed off the fake nails. There was...an odd sort of warmth in Penny's chest all of a sudden.

“And before you say anything, I tested out different kinds of glue on some metals so I think I've found a good one that'll help them stay for longer!”

The girl leaned forward a bit so that her bangs swished over her face. She waited, eager, a grin pasted to her face as she waited for Penny to respond. Penny carefully took the little box between her fingers—feeling strange holding something without her gloves between the metal and the item. She turned it over once in her hand, looking it over.

Ruby had really thought this far ahead already—just for her. That strange warmth in her stomach swelled up, and she wondered briefly if she was having some kind of malfunction.

But that wasn't it at all, and she knew it.

A smile broke over her face.

“You're too much, Ruby Rose,” she said. “Okay. Let's try this.”

“Hooray!!” Ruby squealed, throwing her arms in the air.

The sun filtered warmly through the window, and the sky was full of the faint laughter of two happy girls, just enjoying each other's company.


End file.
